Вариант 18

You are going to read a text on the life of a famous person. For questions 1-15, read the text below and decide which answer (А, В, or С) best fits each gap.

Gainsborough was one of the great masters of 18th century painting in Britain, best known for his portraits.

Thomas Gainsborough was born in May 1727 in Sudbury, Suffolk, the son of a cloth merchant. He (1) artistic skills at an early age. When he was 13 he was sent to London to study drawing and etching with the French engraver Hubert Gravelot.

Gravelot had been a pupil of the great French painter Jean-Antoine Watteau, (2) influence on Gainsborough was (3) . In London, Gainsborough also (4) with English painters William Hogarth and Francis Hayman.

Around 1749, Gainsborough returned to Suffolk, where he lived and worked for a decade. His portraits were mainly of local gentry and merchants. In 1746, he married Margaret Burr and they had two daughters.

In 1759, ambitious (5) more commissions, Gainsborough moved to the fashionable spa town of Bath. His sitters were now authors, actors and members of (6) society. In 1768, he was elected a (7) member of the Royal Academy of Arts.

In 1774, he moved to London, settling in Schomberg House on Pall Mall where he built a studio in the garden. In 1780, he was commissioned (8) portraits of George III and Queen Charlotte. Gainsborough became a royal favourite, fuelling his (9) with the official court painter Sir Joshua Reynolds.

In 1784, Gainsborough quarrelled violently with the Royal Academy (10) the hanging of his pictures. He (11) them and from (12) on exhibited his pictures in his own studio. Gainsborough claimed to prefer painting landscapes (13) painting portraits, but the (14) were much more lucrative and it is for portraits such as ‘Mr and Mrs Andrews’, ‘The Blue Boy’ and ‘The Morning Walk’ (15) he is most famous.

Gainsborough died of cancer on 2 August 1788.